Hi Guys!
Itinerary Check on my partner and I’s 14 day trip to Japan in early October. Is a JR Pass worth it? I’ve done the calculator and we just make my our money back. But really only just. My question is, would it be annoying to purchase shinkansen tickets for all our individual trips, does the JR Pass also pay for convenience sake? Anyway please let me know what you think!
Day 1
*Exploring Shinjuku*
– Land at Haneda 7am
– Get luggage and head out to Shinjuku
– Leave luggage at Hotel in Shinjuku
– Konbini Breakfast
– Shinjuku exploring day as this is where we are based for this part of the trip.
– Dinner at Coco Curry house
– Bar Hop in Golden Gai
– Walk around Kabuchiko.
Day 2 –
*Exploring Shibuya*
– Konbini Breakfast
– Harajuku mid morning to look around.
– Shibuya for the rest of the day and night.
– Shibuya Crossing, Meiji Shrine, Mega Donki. Tower Records, Parco
– Shibuya Sky for sunset
– Shibuya Scramble for dinner.
Day 3
*Exploring Asakusa and Shimokitazawa*
– Nakamise Dori
– Kaninarimon
– Pagoda and Sensoji
– Late afternoon head to Shimokitazawa for vintage shopping.
– Omoide Yokocho for dinner
Day 4
*TeamLab and Akihabara*
– TeamLab – Booked for 10:30am
– Leave middayish
– Akihabara
– Explore etc
– Drinks back in Kabuchiko
Day 5
*Tokyo to Kyoto*
– Check out
– Shinkansen to Kyoto (Activate JR Pass on this day)
– Get in to Kyoto
– Check in
– Check out the near by area
– Line up for Kichi Kichi Omirice (early dinner service) (if can’t get booking)
– Drinks at Bee’s Knees
Day 6
*Senbon Torii and Gion*
– Senbon Torii for early walk.
– Have breakfast nearby.
– Get back to hotel, freshen up and rest
– Explore Gion Area
Day 7
*Arashiyama and Nishiki Market*
– Hit up Konbini for breakfast and lunch packed for the day.
– Arashiyama bamboo grove
– Tenryu-ji temple
– Senko -ji temple inu
– Iwatayama monkey park
– Come back thru Nishiki market
Day 8
*Kyoto to Osaka*
– Pack stuff up and check out.
– kiyomizu-dera
– Head back to hotel to get bags.
– Head to Osaka
– Dotonbori
– Turn in early ish for Day trip
Day 9
*Day Trip to Nara*
– Nara Park early is a must do for us.
– Head back in late afternoon.
– Dotonbori again for dinner and drinks.
Day 10
*Mino-O Park & Amerika-Mura*
– Pretty much per the title. Mino-O Park for the morning and early afternoon.
– Amerika-Mura and Orange Street for more vintage shopping.
Day 11
*Osaka to Hakone (Biiig Travel Day)*
– Check out and head straight to Hakone.
– Easiest way is Shin-Osaka to Odawarra, then I don’t think we can use JR Pass to get to Gora.
– Check in
– Have a soak at Ryokan
– Kasaeki Dinner is included.
Day 12
*Hakone Ropeway and Lake Ashi*
– Use free pass to take ropeway all the way down the mountain to Lake Ashi
– Have lunch
– Ropeway back up
– Open Air Musuem
– Soak
– Dinner.
Day 13
*Hakone to Tokyo*
– breakfast and soak
– Make the trek back to Tokyo – Ginza. Note that our 7-Day pass runs out on this day.
– Check in- freshen up.
– Dinner and a walk around Ginza 6.
Day 14
*Final day in Ginza*
– Tsujuki Market in the morning.
– Final time for shopping and exploring our surrounds.
– Get to airport around 7/8pm
Let me know what you think! 🙂
4 comments
If you activate the pass on day 5 it will expire on day 11 – not on day 13.
It will probably be more convenient not being limited to 7 days and have a more flexible itinerary over getting the pass. It‘s quite easy to get single tickets on the machines.
Just something to note, the JR pass is not only for the Shinkansen. You can take almost any JR train. Even local ones.
A small trip of say 150yen on the metro from shinjuku to shibuya to asakusa a few times a day will add up. Could be costing 1000 yen with the return. Not sure about the convenience of using JR lines in Kyoto and Osaka, but most of Tokyo is JR.
Another thing is that the JR pass takes a lot of hassle out of the process. Show the pass, get on a train. No need to get a Suica card and keep charging it(which isn’t exactly hard either).
This will be my 2nd time in Japan starting / ending in Tokyo from Kyoto region. I got the JR pass last time, and got it again. As long as you get the trip out of Tokyo and back to Tokyo covered with the pass, I think everything else is just gravy from there.
Of course, this is with the old price. You might have the new price when you go? Then, I’m not sure it’s worth it.
So I’ve two minds about this. Even if you choose to get the JR pass, you’ll still have days that aren’t covered. So for those days, you’ll have to pay for the metro/train. The easiest way to do that is to get an IC card (suica or pasmo). There’s a shortage of those cards right now, but you can still get the tourist version at the airports or the digital version on an iphone. Way easier to tap in/out to any station than fiddle with the ticket machine and worry about all the different companies and lines.
So it’s whether you want to carry both an IC card (which is useful for way more than just getting on a train) AND a JR pass, or just the IC card.
Pro of getting the JR pass: tons of flexibility to get on and off the train. Allows you to shift your itinerary really easily. Decide to go to Hiroshima? No problem, won’t cost you any more. Day trip to Himeji? Go for it!
Cons: another thing to carry. I actually had anxiety about loosing it because it’s the same as a normal ticket (used to be this big thing you showed, now you put it in the gate machine).
Waiting in line to get the actual JR pass. Whether you buy it online or get an exchange voucher, you have to go to the office to get the actual JR pass you use. This took us an hour and a half, which wasn’t the best use of our time.
Hope this perspective helps!